Revolution
by RebelzHeart
Summary: "Why fight a battle that you'll never win?" Koala didn't quite get it at first... but now she was understanding that freedom was a fight that was impossible to lose. Oneshot


"Why fight a battle that you'll know that you'll lose?"

Koala didn't quite get it. She didn't think that she'd ever had... but if she had understood it before, then being a slave had made it impossible to remember what it was like to be free enough to think what she wanted. Why bother standing up if you only got pushed down again?

"It doesn't make sense."

Fisher Tiger smiled at her as he slipped a cigar between his lips. "It doesn't have to." He replied. "Besides, we're not going to lose."

"You will." Koala frowned. "You'll get caught, and you'll all be made into slaves. You can't win against the world."

"Not the world," Fisher Tiger corrected her, his smile widening. "Just the idiots who control it."

Koala shook her head. "It won't happen," She muttered, "There's no way that it could happen."

"Koala," Fisher Tiger sighed. "What's freedom?"

"Freedom?" Koala echoed, her eyebrows furrowing together in confusion. "I- I don't know yet."

"Do you like it?" Fisher Tiger raised an eyebrow.

Koala nodded.

Fisher Tiger leaned back, and smiled in satisfaction. "Do you think that it's something worth dying for?"

Koala flinched back, and ducked her head. "Worth dying for?" She echoed. "...I don't know yet."

"Start from the beginning." Fisher Tiger advised her. "Here, I'll give you something to chew on. Was being with those nobles really living?"

Blindly doing whatever the 'master' wanted... being punished when she was 'out of turn'... always being stuck in a cage...

"No," She whispered. "That's not living."

Fisher Tiger smiled proudly. "Being a puppet's pretty awful, isn't it?" He asked.

Koala nodded. "You're cutting our strings," She realized. "That's what the revolution is, it's not fighting, it's just... breathing."

"Not my breath." Fisher Tiger laughed. "The world's."

"The world's stopped breathing?" Koala asked.

"It's not truly living." Fisher Tiger replied. "And if the World Government's not stopped, it'll never change."

"A revolution." Koala echoed, a wide smile lighting up her features. "Let me fight with you!"

Fisher Tiger laughed and rubbed her head. "You're still young. Enjoy your freedom, we're sending you back to your family."

"No." Koala shook her head. "Let me fight."

Fisher Tiger stared at her thoughtfully. "We'll teach you how to fight, and then once you're older, we'll come back to you." He promised. "And then you can fight with us."

Koala grinned. "Promise?" She asked.

"...Promise." Fisher Tiger smiled back at her, a weary smile filled with excitement.

Looking back, Koala thought that perhaps he had known that he was going to die.

* * *

"He's dead?" Koala echoed. "You... you tipped off the World Government?"

Her mother's eyes flickered away. "It was for your sake." She whispered. "I didn't do it for me, Koala, I did it for _you_... can you blame me? He's just a fishman. Is his life really worth more than your freedom?"

"Yes." Koala snarled furiously. "His life was worth much more than my happiness. Do you know what you've done? You've turned in one of the main players of the Revolution! He was giving people the same freedom that I was given! He _freed_ me! If not for him, you may never have seen me again!"

Koala's mother fell silent, frowning at her in the odd way that adults always seemed to when they thought that Koala didn't know what she was talking about. "What was I supposed to do?" She finally demanded, her voice harsh yet weary. "What was I supposed to say? That some stranger was worth more to me than my daughter?"

"You were supposed to think about a better future." Koala replied angrily. "To think about a world where nobody went through what I had to."

"Why fight a battle that you'll never win?" Her mother's voice was rising and cracking at the same time, furious yet terrified. "Why fight against the world?"

"It's not the world." Koala breathed. "It's just those who control it."

"You can't fight it." Her mother shook her head. "This isn't something that you can fight."

"Wrong." Koala snapped. "It's not something that you want to fight. But it's my battle, and I can't sit here and just wait for the Revolution to win."

"What do you mean?" Her mother's voice was shaking. "You can't..."

"I can fight." Koala interrupted her mother. "Those Tenryuubito, they talked about destiny, how they were meant to be better than us. Maybe we're all meant to be equal, and we're too busy being scared to look at this world and realize how messed up it is. Maybe I'm meant to fight."

"You can't."

Koala stepped back. "Love you, mother." She whispered. "I'm going to be a Revolutionary."

* * *

"You were freed by Fisher Tiger?" Dragon leaned back and stared evenly at Koala. "Is that why you're here? Because he told you to?"

"No." Koala shook her head. "Fisher Tiger didn't want me to fight. He said that it was dangerous, that I would probably die if I chose to fight in this battle."

"He told you the truth." Dragon replied. "So, if you know all of that, then why are you here?"

Koala turned around and pulled up her shirt, exposing the sun tattoo on her back. "They marked me for life." She replied quietly. "I can't just live a life that ignores what happened to me. I can't be free if I just turn a blind eye to what it's like to be caged. I want other slaves to know what the sky's like, to know how green the grass is, and how good food can taste."

When she let her shirt fall back down and turned around, Dragon was smiling. "I see." He replied. "You don't think that freedom is destined for certain people?"

"I think that destiny's a hoax." Koala replied. "If I believed in destiny, I'd still be in a cage acting as the Tenryuubito's puppet."

Dragon raised an eyebrow. "Can you fight?" He asked coolly.

Koala smiled. "Are we going to create a better world?"

"You think that we're going to win?"

"It's a revolution." Koala replied. "We're like weeds."

"Unstoppable?" Dragon laughed.

"Unstoppable." Koala agreed.

 **A/N:** I don't know how many fics I've written while procrastinating now... I know that I've got to work on my ongoing stuff, but I've got all these ideas in my head and if I don't get even one out I'm going to burst. Sorry, guys, but I hope that you enjoyed this oneshot anyways.


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